Some of us have been working in this area for years, banging our heads against brick walls. Perhaps this will, as Ellen DeGeneres says, be a wake-up call in the USA.
The situation is probably as bad here in the UK because homophobic bullying is rife across all schools and what support groups there are for LGBT youth are dreadfully under-resourced; some may even have to close with the threatened cuts to public services.
If you care about this then you should be out fighting for more resources for LGBT youth support groups, challenging mainstream services to meet the needs of LGBT young people as well as trying to stop homophobia at its roots: religion, law, media, education, medicine, families.

Awful, awful news. It’s often difficult enough realising you’re gay as a teen because you feel like the whole world revolves round being straight (teen mags, teen shows, etc) and you can feel very isolated, but to also have to suffer bullying like this is something find it hard to imagine. These young men must have been desperate.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s not just the bullying teens who are to blame, the adults who allow, or even encourage, homophobic views are to blame too. Not to mention the ridiculous ‘family’ groups in the US who spout their hate at every opportunity under the guise of ‘christianity’.

The evidence suggests that, on both sides of the pond, the bullies effectively get the green light from school authorities who don’t act and look the other way.
Concerned parents need to get the ball rolling, I feel, since Governments are also dragging their feet. Complacent (and complicit) schools are clearly failing in their duty of care to these young people. Parents of bullied actual or perceived lgbt youth should withdraw them from school, citing it as an unacceptably dangerous place, and sue.

This is the price of your precious ‘religious freedoms’! To hear these sad tragic events just because gay people are deems not acceptable. All you religious nuts have the blood of the innocent on your hands.. and you probably still say religion is about love. Though target your hate easily enough!!

i also want to add 20 years ago when I came out we never had such a bad problem yes there were attacks but rarely murder. colin Ireland a mad quenn did the most murders. we were respected in a cool way and we had the best people clubs & attitude. can someone explain why after all this “progress” the stigma seems worse? I think gay men like norton ogrady , alan carr , those idiots from will and grace that idiot from glee have made homosexuality so naff and emnarrasing that no one want to be associated with it.

This is also a wake-up call that full equality is vital. When homophobes learn that we’re treated differently, given rights with different names, it sends a clear message that we’re inferior to the rest of society, that our relationships are less valid and inferior to the majority. StonewallUK doesn’t quite get it when it considers school bullying the most important priority but doesn’t connect the dots that segregating us with similar rights isn’t linked to bullying. There is most definitely a connection and in fact, he’s helping to foster bullying though unintentionally by refusing to endorse marriage equality as part of its agenda. If he’s incapable of multi-tasking, then he’s the wrong man for the job. Time for a change to replace him with someone who is. I hope some of Stonewall’s trolls will take note. StonewallUK does NOT represent all LGBT people and just because some of us want marriage, it shouldn’t oppose it but defend and support it regardless and without exception. Nobody is forcing anyone to marry or form a civil partnership but that’s what StonewallUK is doing, giving us only one option instead of the full deal. How can that be a good thing and how can that be construed as supporting equality. On the contrary, Mr. Summerskill, time for you to step down and make way for someone who understands that separate is never equal, by any stretch of the imagination or semantics. Stop the denial and get on board, NOW and maybe we’ll see bullying dwindle and fewer suicides. No amount of legislation is going to stop it, face facts.

Dean, those “naff and embarrassing types you ridicule were in the vanguard of the original Stonewall uprising in America, the ones who fought for and won some rights and which sparked the gay rights movement around the world, including the UK. Its premise was to fight for FULL equality. Sadly, our own StonewallUK does not seem to think that’s a priority in its stubborn refusal to include marriage equality in its agenda. We are a diverse group of people. Personally, I’d rather have the Alan Carr ilk over any of the self-loathers and others in our group who oppose full equality, the “straight” acting ones. At least the Alan Carr’s of this world are honest and open, not afraid to be who they are and they don’t hide in the closet but stick their necks out for the rest of us. Attacking them is a form of internalised homophobia.

Robert The Stonewall bar was used by transvestites black gay men and lesbians the exact oppositeof those who gay men in power now. Alan carr is playing to the gallery he is the sexless acceptable face of homosexuality. Stephen k Amos black gay out commedian and he’s ignored. his shows are ignored in the gay press. you tell me if gay life is better or worse now than 20 years ago?

dean. Your constant finger pointing at pink news readers for being racist is stupid and boring. You seem paranoid. Maybe you smoke too much spliff, who knows? You seem to turn every story around from being about homosexuality/phobia to racial equality.

And then after you condemn everyone for being racist, you start being homophobic, slagging off Alan Carr and Graham Norton, etc, as if they are not human beings, ‘idiots, naff and embarrasing’. (naff is a very ‘naff’ word btw, and a little camp for someone so butch like you) So what if some gay men are camp, get over it, that’s the way it is. I’m sure all the camp fellas wish they could ‘butch’ up for you. NOT.

You seem to think you’re a nice guy, when every one of your posts condemns someone else. You need to get a grip. Take some time to get over your anger. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but you just come across as hateful and bitter to me. (I’m not speaking for everyone, just my opinion, before you accuse me)

Back to the news story dean……… it’s exactly the kind of ‘im a big butch alpha male’ bullying that you go on that contributes to kids like these wanting to kill themselves.

Pope Benedict XVI and the tele-evangelists in USA must have much of the blame sheeted home to them. Their rabid anti-gay rhetoric and efforts have emboldened many ordinary people to be blatantly homophobic.

Troublingly if you look at mainstream US news sites (CNET etc) many of the comments on the story about Tyler Clementi, (the person who jumped off the GW Bridge after his roommate showed him being intimate with a man on a webcast), are negative. There seems to be a large portion of the US public who think that it must have been difficualt for his roomate to share with a gay man, stating that it must have been unpleasant just to be near a gay man. They suggest that the roomate had every right to use his webcam the way he did, for his ‘security’ and ‘safety’ due to having a gay man near him. There are large numbers of people who think that because Tyler had an online presence on a couple of gay chatrooms and had clearly had sex with men on other occasions, he should not have felt any shame in being treasted the way he was. In short they don’t see his death as anything to be worried about and yes, they seem to dissasociate it from the other deaths this week.

Apparently, according to a lot of them, there’s no problem in the USA with homophobia around young people. Suicides happen, get over it, seems to be the message. Gay kids desrve it is the undertone.

My question to them is, if you think there’s no homophobia problem ‘Compare list of names gay teen suicides with the list of heterosexual teens who have committed suicide after being taunted by their gay peers and tell me if there’s a problem then’…

The republicans, the Tea Party, the religious right and Fox news have blood on their hands.

@ dean, #12: You and I must have come out (and currently live) in different worlds: the Are you being served? stereotypes were by no means more desirable or conducive of positive attitudes than today’s Alan Carr – quite the opposite.

As for suicides and murders 20 years ago, you seem to forget that it WAS AGAINST THE LAW TO BE A GAY TEENAGER then. Accordingly, young people were obviously far more closeted, and families would do far more to hush up circumstances they saw as unpleasant.

The problem is that gay young teens have no support system. They in most cases have to come to terms with it all by themselves. There is nothing in school to say it’s OK. There needs to be support groups within or connected to schools. The problem starts at school in most cases, but the bigger problem is that a lot of straight adults don’t understand and are fearful (another word – homophobic).

By the way, regarding stereotypes – who cares if some famous gay men are camp, in the same way as who cares if some famous straight men are super butch!

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